2014

IMPRESSIONS
Politicians’ shenanigans are getting bolder and nastier by the day. The Narendra Modi personality cult is raised to the level of equating him with the revered Mahadev himself (Har, har, Modi!); P. Chidambaram threatens to turn Gandhian and devote himself to “serving my people” in Sivaganga; Sharad Pawar shows no shame in asking his followers to break the law and vote twice; Dhananjay Munde boasts that he organised one lakh bogus votes for his uncle and BJP leader Gopinath (…)

by Sonali Kusum
Surrogacy is a $ US 2.8 billion trade across the world and India’s commercial surrogacy is a $ 2.5 billion industry in the country.1 This is as per the estimate of the Confederation of Indian Industry.
It is an admitted and well-known fact that in India surrogacy is legal in the commercial form with the Supreme Court judgment since the year 2002 in the absence of an effective binding law. The proposed law regulating surrogacy in India—the Assisted Reproductive (…)

by Portia B. Conrad
In 2002, the Government of Pakistan became one of the first countries in the world to establish a national public-private partnership devoted to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This partnership includes the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Government of Pakistan, civil-society organi-sations and private donors, both in Pakistan and abroad.
The MDGs comprised eight ambitious goals that were approved by world leaders at the Millennium (…)

communication
With the passing of Anthony Wedgewood Benn (Tony Benn) an era has come to an end for radical socialism in Britain.
Though he was born in an aristocratic family Mr Benn renounced his peerage in order to serve in the House of Commons which he entered as an MP in November 1950. Throughout his life Mr Benn served the cause of the working class in Britain with a passion and dedication rarely seen in modern British politics. There is no doubt that he was a polarising figure who (…)

by Arun Srivastava
Narendra Modi’s supporters and admirers claim that he is the most talented politician of our time. They may be right. Their perception is based on his oratorical skill and style to attract the people. In a democracy it is imperative for a leader to appeal to the human sentiment and muster their support. The interaction with the people is the key to democratic functioning. In a democracy the debate is done in two ways: first, through positive interaction by chiseling the (…)

The voting pattern on the United Nations forums invariably gives some indication of policy directions of member-states. On the face of it, India took a similar stance of abstention on two high-profile regional issues that came up for voting last Thursday (March 27)— the UN General Assembly resolution declaring invalid Crimea’s recent Moscow-backed referendum and the resolution at the UN Human Rights Council to open an investigation into possible war crimes in Sri Lanka.
Both are (…)

POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
The hurly-burly of elections is probably dimini-shing the thrust of changes in the national psyche, seeking coherence in a period of drift. The rationalisation is being forged with a fair bit of attention to detail. Discourse has been hitherto conducted along the accepted white line of the collective rather than the individual. Sociologists had been bemoaning the diminution of the individual in society, and flowing from that his/her perceptions of rights and (…)

IMPRESSIONS
In our obsession with the elections, we’ve lost track of the world. As it happens, the US is “just three steps away from war with Russia”, as an American strategist put it. A Russian commentator put it thus: “Russia is the only country in the world capable of turning the United States into radioactive ash.” Got the picture?
War won’t—or shall we say, may not—happen. Not because leaders love peace, but because the prospect of being reduced to ash is all too real for more than (…)

by R.G. GIDADHUBLI
The US President, Barak Obama, has demon-strated that he has succeeded along with his West European partners in isolating Russia for annexing Crimea by excluding Vladimir Putin from attending the G-8 meeting on March 25, 2014 held in the Hague which was originally scheduled to be held in Sochi. The West has also warned of political isolation and “significant consequences” for Moscow’s actions in Ukraine and that Russia “has a clear choice to make”. As expected, there was (…)

TRIBUTE
Sardar Khushwant Singh lived life at his own terms. He spoke fearlessly. He wrote along the same strain. No contradictions. Just no hypocrisy, no frills and none of the modern-day complications. Till date he hadn’t got himself a computer and nor a secretary and definitely not a mobile. ”Mere bas ka naheen hai yeh sab... I am happy writing on a note pad...“ And he‘d moaned when one of his friends had got him a mobile. Rejecting modern-day gadgets, keeping to the very basics.
In (…)